From illusory manliness to manly illusions: Fallos emerges at the intersection of the work of Marc Martin and Arthur Gillet both fascinated by different hypostases of maleness, archaic as well as contemporary, and their work is informed by this obsession. They postulate that the many masks of maleness and manliness don’t cover lies, but that they are honest accessories for the manifestation of desire. Arthur and Marc are at play: they play with the values of traditional manliness — efficiency, authority, domination, glory, force, power, technical prowess. They privilege the unseen and the intuitive; pleasure and utopia; chance and doubt; slowness and languor. Their favourite perversion is to illuminate the shadows that surround filth; to highlight the splendour of depravity; to glorify decadence. The fissures in Arthur Gillet’s erect porcelain, the erotic nonchalance in Marc Martin’s shutter, both force us to see beyond the illusion, away from mere raw nudity, away from reflection. A bigger picture, a larger phallic dimension creeps from beneath the troubled waters of reflected image. This show is open to multiple interpretations, perhaps contradictory ones, sometimes unclear, often controversial, permanently evolving — much like the manifold and evolving interpretations that emerge from the many aspects of virility that both artists explore.